The Center of Excellence in Oral and Craniofacial Biology currently provides equipment and technical support to the faculty and staff of the LSU School of Dentistry in two principle areas; 1) Physical Chemical and Material Analysis and 2) Cellular and Molecular Analysis. Centralized research facilities are vital to the functional utility of a collaborative research center. These facilities provide investigators with access to technology, services equipment that would otherwise be unavailable to them due to the large expense in purchasing and maintaining these items. The use of expensive equipment in a common core facility provides efficiency in cost sharing and allows investigators greater access to a greater variety of research tools, thus broadening their potential for success. The atmosphere within a centralized core facility also nexus for collaborative interaction and discussion of innovative uses for existing technologies. Centralized core facilities also provide an effective means of maintaining skilled personnel, and optimizing the utilization of such personnel. In addition, they provided a reservoir of research skill that can be used to train new student, residents, post-doctoral fellows and technicians, thereby allowing for greater continuity of research and smaller gaps in research productivity. Funds are requested to strengthen and broaden an existing centralized research core facility by adding equipment for material, cellular and molecular analysis and increasing technical support, in order to provide existing and future researches the greatest possibility of success. The Specific Aims are: 1) To provide centralized shared equipment to enhance the research potential of principal investigators and new hires. 2) To provide technical assistance in the use of the equipment housed within the core facility.